In the digital age, organizations increasingly rely on digitally-stored data. To protect against data loss, an organization may use a backup system to back up important data. For example, a backup system may periodically create a full backup of a volume of data according to a defined schedule.
Unfortunately, backup systems may consume significant amounts of computing resources. For instance, backups may consume storage space, and transferring data for backups may consume I/O bandwidth and network bandwidth. Additionally, the more data there is to backup, the longer backups may take to perform. By competing for computing resources, backups may sometimes interfere with the performance of primary applications. Likewise, other applications may slow down the backup process. Furthermore, if an extended backup process is interrupted, a restoration system may have to resort to a previous backup instead of the most recent scheduled backup. Accordingly, the instant disclosure identifies and addresses a need for additional and improved systems and methods for efficiently backing up data.